Kim Possible : STD
by thoth-anubis
Summary: Kim has to deal with the consequences of her actions, and the chain of events that follow - and so does Ron.
1. Prologue: Footprints & Froobness

**Kim Possible: STD**

**Summary:** Kim has to deal with the consequences of her actions, and the chain of events that follow.

**Author's Note:** It had been a while since I'd checked the updates on so I was out of the loop in terms of abbreviations. To be specific, late one night when I started reading some of the new postings and found several references to "STD"... Well, frankly, "So the Drama" was **not** what I thought of... Talk about a brain freezing moment... This story was born from my moment of stunned disbelief. Points of information:

Note 1 : The first section _is_ somewhat unusual, but it picks up later on. Please keep reading beyond that point.

Note 2 : What happened to Ron prior to his appearance will be explored later in the story - it's not done for no reason or for simple shock value, and eventually all will be made clear (hopefully).

Note 3 : Despite a similarity of name, appearance, and role, a character from the movie "So the Drama" is not the same person (or semblance of one) that is found in this work. Also, I am indeed deliberately making him as unlikable as possible so as to limit the dimensions of a potentially fraught situation.

Note 4 : I am leaving the precise "consequence" Kim has to deal with unspecified for a number of reasons. Please don't assume that I'm referring to a specific one and think the plot must go a certain way as a result (in other words, she's not dying - this is based on a Disney series (which I don't own, and make no money from), after all). In a sense, for the purposes of this story, it's irrelevant precisely which one it actually is.

Meditate on this quote from the "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer" TV episode "Reptile Boy" :

**Buffy:** I told one lie. I had one drink.  
**Giles:** Yes, and you were very nearly devoured by a giant demon snake. The words, "let that be a lesson" are a tad redundant at this juncture.

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Enjoy, and R&R!

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Prologue : Footprints & Froobness

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Middleton High is a small school. Not small in the sense of number of rooms, student to teacher ratios, or even the overall number of students enrolled in the school - Middleton is, after all, a fairly large community, even if it doesn't have the population of Lowerton, or the population density of Upperton; indeed, the student body consisted of precisely 999 students. No, Middleton High is small in terms of footprint - meaning the square footage of ground covered by the buildings that comprise the school. Between a compact design involving small wings growing from the central administrative hub, and a multi-floor design, Middleton High is a marvel of compact efficiency in education - despite the odd hallways, which in aerial views more closely resembled elements of a space station than a conventional building (which, given the presence of the Space Center in Middleton, almost makes a bizarre kind of sense).

The only exception to this simple truth is the connecting corridor to the Cafeteria - Gymnasium, which is far longer than any other - even unnecessarily so. The length of this corridor serves no known functional or aesthetic purpose; it simply is.

The Greater Tri-City School District, encompassing as it did Middleton's compact design, Upperton's sprawling expanse, and Lowerton's grand single-story halls, made policy for all three high schools. As a consequence, policies and rules were designed with all the schools within its purview in mind, but which were precisely tailored for none. In some respects, this benefited Middleton High, in others it did not, yet in the modern era of consolidation and shared oversight this too is simply the way things are - particularly in a litigious society.

It is doubtful any of the students who attend Middleton High (not even the student council members, those entrusted with the magnificent burden of leadership) ever stopped to consider these facts, but without doubt they certainly knew of and enjoyed at least one of the factors that worked towards Middleton High's favor: the time between classes. Thanks to Middleton's small footprint, the time allotted by the school board to travel from one class period to the next was very, very generous. So generous in fact, that it was possible for a student to visit his or her locker between almost every class, pause in the halls to chat with friends, take a scenic route, or simply stroll leisurely on the way to the next period without being tardy - with the possible exception of going to and from lunch or physical education (thanks to the aforementioned unusual design feature). The same span of time that Lowerton's students cursed - when they dared - as they hurried through the halls while lugging the majority of their books from class to class, enabled Middleton's student body to socialize and otherwise decompress between educational periods.

As a consequence of this, much to Steve Barkin's dismay, any time the bell rang releasing a flood of students from one class period, the halls (especially those where the students' lockers were located) quickly became a congested (relatively, anyway - even at their worst, the halls still remained passable) tangle of only peripherally interacting knots of students, casually strolling teens, and others engaged in talking on cell phones, loitering, or simply "hanging out." Some days, the air of insouciance they emitted was so lackluster the vein in Mr. Barkin's temple could be seen to visibly throb.

Today is a normal day; one much like any other - or as normal as a day can get at a school attended by Kim Possible (a teenager who routinely saves the world) - and more importantly, a day where the school year was winding down to the start of summer vacation. The sun was shining, third period had just been dismissed, and it was a beautiful day.

The only hitch to be found in an otherwise textbook perfect day was the low rumbling roar that came from outside the school, gradually increasing in volume - and even that sound was only audible in one wing of the building. As the students' chatted and laughed in the halls, even those who had noticed the sound ignored it - and eventually even this minor discordant note went away, leaving the usual pleasant mundanity behind.

Through the doors at the end of the science wing, and into the seething and swirling mass of students killing time in the generous, school board mandated break between periods, entered Ron Stoppable. The fact that Ron was just entering the school before fourth period was relatively normal, what with his mediocre (at best) academic inclination and his role as a sidekick (and-or) partner to Kim Possible. All this was normal; the wall of silence that followed - and to a lesser extent, preceded - his slow progress down the hall was not.

As any parent will tell you, most teens know themselves to be invincible, invulnerable, and immortal - at least in their own mind. Any other possibility simply didn't enter their thoughts unless the real world forcibly intruded into the carefully delimited sphere of their existence. Shielded from much of the harsh reality of the world by a general consensus of the majority of the population, and protected from the bulk of the dangers and worries that they would eventually face as they aged, the students' world was a microcosm that was largely self-contained, and especially in a town like Middleton with dedicated and conscientious teachers, parents, and police... safe. Danger (in the forms that it actually existed within the students' microcosm) was limited to getting caught misbehaving (be it by those same parents, teachers, or for a select few, the police), facing social or peer rejection, or at the extreme worst, running afoul of the D-Hall thugs or jocks as they showed off their carefully sculpted muscles.

In Japan, Ron Stoppable had encountered an expression, "The nail that stands up gets pounded down." He didn't recognize the significance of the expression or grasp the societal implications, but he certainly lived it. Ron stood out, and he was frequently pounded down.

Kim Possible, who frequently saved the world (not to mention Ron), on the other hand, also stood out, but differently. Although she stood out, she was also a cute girl and a cheerleader (as well as the captain of the squad), wore fashionable clothes, had dated the captain of the football team and some of the cream of the male social crop. She may have stood out, but she fit in well enough, and was popular enough, that even though she wasn't precisely "normal" by Middleton standards, she was close enough to be acceptable - even Bonnie was grudgingly accepting of Kim's general position in the overall scheme of the pecking order - so long as it was beneath her, that is.

Kim fit in; Ron did not. Kim had fame; Ron had infamy.

The microcosm of the high school experience (outside the boundaries of the mandated and necessary educational process) largely existed as a social contract between the students, and this was maintained with brutal efficiency and a callous disregard for the personal feelings, emotions, and spirits of those being crushed underfoot. The cream of the social set (the membership varied in this apex group, and shifted and reconfigured itself over time, but the strata itself always remained) ruled with an iron will unseen in the larger world outside of the Axis of Evil. The intangibles that encompassed this unspoken contract formed "The Rules," as Ron thought of them, and whether they were couched in terms of planets, Queen Bee's, variously colored animals, group theory or social dynamics, Ron was always outside the normal.

His position wasn't by choice, nor was his outsider status deliberate; despite his motto of "never be normal," Ron was as firm a believer in "The Rules" as Bonnie Rockwaller, albeit from a different perspective. From the importance and cultural underpinnings of sharing in kindergarten, to the dating food chain, Ron knew _all_ The Rules - and especially how he did and didn't fit within them, and should he ever lose sight of one, he knew that there were always plenty of volunteers to educate him at length about his shortcomings.

Despite his outsider status, at times Ron craved the simple acceptance and even adulation that conforming to the Rules could generate, but whether it was by throwing Naco money around to buy entry into the superior social status, the desire to be (and for a brief time, becoming) a famous journalist, the sudden ability to speak absolute truth, getting a world-class haircut (the secret was in the sea urchin), saving the day when confronted by a menacing mutant, cooking the finest cuisine, or becoming an overnight sensation as a genius wünderkind, something inevitably went wrong with his attempts at achieving popularity (and by extension, conformity) through some outstanding trait. His core "Ron-ness" would emerge, and he would be forcibly ejected from whatever social niche he'd managed to rise to.

And that, possibly more than anything, contributed to Ron's inability to enter the boundaries of the conventional social norms permanently - even while riding on Kim Possible's coattails. His dramatic and frequent rise and fall illustrated how precarious and haphazard the web of The Rules truly was. Given a choice between rejecting an outsider or confronting the impermanence and flimsiness of the structure that constituted almost the entire world of their social lives... the choice for most was very clear.

Which is not to say Ron was completely isolated; even in a protected microcosm like the school, there were some who for one reason or another - such as having a job (as in Zita's case), and thus being less insulated from the realities of the wider world, or by virtue of being sufficiently out of the mainstream as to be outside the normal scope of the rules (as was Felix, or had he attended Middleton High, Kim's cousin Larry), or being a friend of a friend (as was Monique) - knew enough of the way things _really_ worked to recognize the inherent limitations in The Rules, or at the very least, to not be entirely controlled by them.

Ron's laissez-faire attitude and laid-back nature covered a set of abilities, attitudes, and behaviors that in a more socially adept or conventional person - and a little bit of work - could have made him welcome in any or all of the layers of the social hierarchy - a rare blessing. In Ron, they combined to make him just different enough from each of them to be all but unwelcome in _any_ tier, while his ability to seemingly move into any of the normal strata - for however limited a time until he was inevitably ejected again - only made most of the people in those tiers all the more leery of associating with him because of the inevitable expulsion.

More, not even the most hardened and cynical government bureaucrat understood the drive to "C.Y.A." like the average teen in a group of his or her peers. Breaching the implicit social contract - unless you were rich enough, popular enough, or good- looking enough to transcend the normal rules - was a sure route to shunning and rejection.

In sum, being outside of the Rules (or beneath them, depending on one's perspective) made Ron a froob to most. Someone to be ignored, mocked, ridiculed, beat down, pushed aside, or victimized, depending on the temperament of the other party involved - mostly it was simply being ignored, since if you took too much notice of the person outside the Rules, you might come to be associated with such a pariah... a fate worse than death to many. Consequently, the normal reaction to Ron walking down the hall was a non-reaction. In normal circumstances, he was largely beneath notice by nearly universal, and totally unspoken, agreement.

It had started as a normal day. It was also dipping into the realm of abnormality as Ron's entrance made the other students take notice. By happenstance, none of the friendly acquaintances that Ron maintained were in the hallway he entered - people who might have reacted differently to his sudden appearance than the general population.

The students who _were_ there didn't think about how much time there was before the next class, or why they were so generously supplied. They didn't think about their place in the pecking order, why the order existed, or what it meant, or even why Ron was such a froob. Nor did they think about socio- economic politics, the food chain, or what such a pink sloth was doing in a school like Middleton and hanging out with a cheerleader...

Instead, they noted his presence, and suddenly decided they absolutely needed to be in class - or, to be absolutely truthful, anywhere other than near him. In a rare moment of unanimity, every single student he passed fell silent, and abandoned the usual routine to flee for the sanctuary of a classroom. Classes were usually a necessary evil used as the framework to maintain the basic social structure of high school, and usually every (however generous they might be) instant between bells was treasured and stretched to put off the next hour of instruction. A combination of the CYA mindset, deliberate ignorance, fear, and an unwillingness to confront what Ron's appearance represented combined to make him transcend his usual non-abnormal (that is, not in one of his brief stints of popularity, nor in the period immediately following said time while in the crash and burn phase of such) minimal social status (well below even the captain of the chess team) and temporarily become a nonperson.

The students weren't evil; nor were they necessarily immature. After all, avoidance is a very common coping mechanism even among adults.

But given the wall of silence and the flight from his presence that followed in Ron's wake, and given that Ron was not experiencing one of his usual, short-term status boosts, or the short-term status deficits in his base, lowly state that resulted after one fell apart, what was the reason for the behavior? However normal that reaction might be?

It was the blood, mainly.

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Author's note: Sorry about the long build up. Six pages of pop psychology and social analysis for a one line kicker... and people wonder why my story output isn't quicker. It's more of a conventional story from here on out, so hopefully you're still reading this.

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	2. Chapter 1: D Hall

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Chapter 1 : D-Hall

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Ron walked down the hall with a gait that was an ungainly cross between an unsteady mosey and a staggering march. He wore his mission clothes; a now almost retro-chic Kim-style look - black turtleneck and olive grey cargo pants - but stains and scratches marred the material, he was missing a glove, and his combat boots were coated to the ankles with a layer of crusted and congealed mud that was flaking off as he moved.

A jetpack rode on his shoulders. One wing of the device was retracted into the body of the pack and laid flush against his scapula. The other blue-green wing remained fully extended, the odd camber in the air foil and the several rough holes piercing the body of it explaining why it had failed to mirror the behavior of its twin.

The blue-green metal of the pack was echoed in the protective helmet on his head, the design more reminiscent of a brimless batting helmet than a pilot's or skydiver's. Rough clumps of blonde hair poked out in all directions around the edges of the headgear, but his hair was short enough and the helmet covered enough that it simply appeared to be an odd fringe, rather than truly appearing messy.

Despite the damage to his flying rig, all of this was relatively normal - for Ron, anyway. It was the other elements of his appearance that caused his fellow students to fall silent and flee.

Few made it through the entire catalogue of injuries he sported before fleeing. Most noted only one or two before choosing not to linger.

The left leg of Ron's pants was torn. As his leg moved beneath the cloth, a sharp slash of red flickered in and out of visibility through the gaping hole in the fabric against the pale backdrop of his flesh.

His shirt, which when he'd bought off the rack at Smarty Mart (aisle 10, next to the emergency pants) could be tucked into his cargo pants, now resembled Kim's midriff baring style in the front. And in the area revealed by the missing cloth, four parallel slashes in the center of a pale red burn crossed the soft flesh of his stomach, one line roughly bisecting the small indentation of his navel.

A small slash ran from the middle of Ron's nose to just beneath the swollen outer edge of his left eye, following the curve of his cheekbone. The eyelid of that blackened and bruised eye randomly twitched, and from the odd movement it was clear that the function was impaired such that it wouldn't properly close. Whether it was from the cut, or from some injury hidden under his helmet, that side of his windburned face from forehead to jawline was clotted with a ghastly profusion of dried and drying blood.

Ron looked neither right nor left as moved down the middle of the hallway, and seemed to take no notice of the mad, silent scramble to get out of his path - and away from him. He simply moved ever onward down the rapidly emptying corridor.

Kim Possible was a young heroine - smart, pretty, popular, and just about every other superlative that teens could think of - almost to the point of approaching perfection. Ron... Well to put it simply, was not, and did not.

Kim Possible saved the world, defeated villains, and usually did so without breaking a nail, bailing on cheerleading practice (often) or getting hurt (much). Ron on the other hand, was much more common, and whether they would admit it or not, the other students knew subconsciously that their own condition would be much closer to Ron's usual than Kim's if they were to go along on one of Team Possible's missions.

Ron, bloodstained and battered as he walked down the hallway, was a vision of their own mortality, a glimpse of how unforgiving and brutal the real world outside the protected enclave of Middleton High could be. Was it any wonder the other students fled? Or that they chose to pretend he didn't exist?

Word of his passage seemed to have spread - or at the very least, the time between classes neared expiration, and the hallways he traversed became empty. As Ron neared the math wing, he had to pass through the infamous D-Hall - site of many an incident of hazing, humiliation, extortion and the infliction of pain. As the bell signalling the start of the next period rang, he continued on, his gaze riveted straight ahead, and his expression as empty and emotionless as his cold, brown eyes.

Ron had nearly reached the end of the passage, when a pair of young men stepped into his path. "Does widdle Ronnie have a boo- boo?" the smaller of the two - smaller even then Ron himself, though his companion more than made up for the difference in sizes - taunted, before chuckling evilly enough to satisfy even Señor Senior, Senior.

For the first time, Ron stopped, and his eyes flickered briefly from one to the other before returning to contemplating the end of the hallway, looking through the obstructions in his path as though they were beneath notice. "Move," he commented, neither concern nor anger coloring his voice. "Now."

As the small thug chortled, the larger cracked his knuckles and grinned. Ron was a popular target since he never fought back and was outside all the usual protections - when he wasn't with Kim, anyway - but she was nowhere in sight. "This is gonna be sweet," the little one gloated, his eyes alight with malicious glee as his friend stepped forward.

Ron didn't seem to move, but suddenly the large thug was lying prone on the ground, unmoving and unresponsive. "Move," Ron repeated, his voice as emotionless as before.

Eyes widening, the small thug looked back and forth between his friend and their usual victim, their roles completely reversed. "How...?" he stammered. "Wha...?" he began, then quickly jumped aside to flatten himself against the row of lockers lining the hall as Ron took a step forward.

As Ron trod uncaringly on the fallen body of one of the thugs who had terrorized him since elementary school, his expression remained empty. He neither tried to avoid stepping on the prone body, nor did he make an attempt to press down harder than necessary or grind his feet into his flesh, he merely crossed over the obstacle and continued on his way, ignoring both the conscious and unconscious hooligan once they no longer blocked his progress.

Down the empty hallway he walked, hearing snippets from the lectures taking place in the classrooms he passed, but he didn't pause in his slow progress. When at last he reached his destination, Ron opened the door and stepped inside.

"Now, since the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection..."

Ron ignored Ms. Whisp's lecture as he walked through the roughly parallel rows and columns of desks. As the class sank into a stunned silence, staring at the bloody vision that had intruded into the mundane world of Geometry, Ron moved an empty chair and stepped into the space he created directly in front of one of the students' desk.

For a moment, the student didn't seem to notice Ron's arrival as he continued to write down what the math teacher was saying, but eventually he noticed the odd feeling in the room, and the presence in front of him. He looked up and up the length of Ron's body, the variance in their postures exaggerating the height difference, and his eyes widened with each injury his glance crossed on its way. Finally, he was staring with eyes agape directly into Ron's.

"Mankey." Ron's voice was quiet and emotionless, but his posture was anything but.

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	3. Chapter 2: What did you know, and when d

**Notes: ** Gotta love reviews... I'll consolidate the ones I've received to date in a couple points of clarification.

I know the first part is dry - pedantic even. I warned about that in the author's notes. Part of the reason for it is for the purpose of the one line kicker at the end (for the dramatic tension and the shock of the shift), and the other reason is for the backdrop for the rest of the story - both why the students react as they do, and as the baseline for starting the events. It's one of the reasons why I named it a prologue, and not chapter 1.

This story is basically about consequences - both those that are intended, and those that are unintended. Put Chaos Theory, Kafka, koans, and Walt's cryogenic vault in a blender and hit purée... The butterfly flaps its wings and a hurricane is spawned in the Gulf of Mexico... Monkey Fist tries to become the monkey master, and makes Ron fulfil the Monkey Prophecy of the Mystical Monkey Monk... For wont of a nail, the war was lost... Expect nothing (or almost nothing) in this to be quite as simple as it might appear at first glance - twists, conventions, and expectations can (and will) be stood on their heads. Things are rarely cut and dried in the real world, and motivations (not to mention cause and effect) are often the murkiest of all.

A simple revenge-fic _was_ the starting point - Ron shows up at school despite being beat to hell and gets revenge for Kim - but those have been done before (not for this reason though, to the best of my knowledge - but I have seen ones for rape, pregnancy, death, paralysis, crippling injury, etc)... From that starting point is where things developed.

After it all plays out, depending upon how long this goes (and again, many works in progress, limited writing time), there will be a complex chain of events, actions, changes, decisions, etc. all traceable back to one fateful decision. Which again, goes back to the dry tone of the first part: the real world is where the freak-fighting takes place and the danger lives, but the school is safe... or so it is thought.

Hopefully this will clarify some of my thinking without spoiling the specifics of the plot too much... I tried to do it in the initial author's notes, but perhaps I was too sparse since I was trying not to give too many spoilers - and here I was afraid I'd given away a big plot twist or two in there...

Anyway, I'm glad so many folks took my advice and kept reading past the prologue and I hope you continue to read and enjoy this story... And don't worry, Kim will indeed show up.

Enjoy, and keep R&R!

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Chapter 2 : What did you know, and when did you know it?

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"Ron," Josh replied quietly in turn. "You ok?" he asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the blood on the teen's face.

Ms. Whisp, finally realizing something was amiss, turned from the chalkboard. Startled, she gaped at Ron's appearance. "Ronald?" she demanded.

Ignoring the teacher, Ron simply asked Josh, "What were you doing Friday?"

Josh blinked in confusion. "What?"

Ron leaned down and rested his palms on the front corners of Josh's desk, his fingers curling around the lip to grip the desktop tightly. Without changing his expression or tone of voice, he asked again, "What were you doing Friday?"

The rest of the students slowly edged away from the confrontation, the muted scraping of chairs and desks a bizarre counterpoint to the tension as they filtered through the obstacles, putting space and barriers between themselves and the tense situation. Only Josh, Tara - who was seated directly behind Josh, and Monique - who had joined the teacher in approaching the stand-off - remained near Ron.

"What happened, Ronald?" Ms. Whisp asked quietly as she neared him, her voice cautiously nonconfrontational. After the fiasco of his supposed mathematical genius (which ultimately turned out to really be Rufus') Ronald was hardly her favorite student, but even she could see that he was in bad shape.

"Drakken. Rain forest. Evil lair. Death ray. No big." Ron enunciated carefully, his voice remaining emotionless as his eyes remained locked to Josh's.

Monique ducked around to move in front of her teacher and demanded, "What's wrong with you?" as she grabbed Ron by his left forearm.

Ron's emotionless expression briefly cracked as one corner of Josh's desk broke off in his bare hand. An unsteady irregular breath hissed from between his suddenly clenched teeth as his knees appeared to buckle, but somehow Ron managed to remain silent and on his feet.

Flinching, Monique looked down at her hand as she released Ron's arm. In the harsh light of the fluorescents overhead, the palm of her hand glittered with moisture. Carefully, watching Ron's reaction as he visibly struggled to regain his composure as she did, she cautiously pulled his sleeve up his arm.

As the sleeve moved, and more of his forearm was revealed, it uncovered a burn - one with several popped blisters where she'd incautiously grabbed him. She winced as the fabric of his shirt clung to the wound, some of the fibers appearing to have melted into his skin, but Ron simply ignored her as he visibly regathered his frayed composure.

Josh stared at the broken corner of his desk that Ron clutched in his hand. The material of the desks - some space-age composite material designed to resist wear and tear, vandalism, and everything else that rambunctious teenagers could possibly do to it (intentionally or not) - had snapped like a twig in Ron's grasp. "Shouldn't you be at the nurse's office?" he cautiously suggested. "Or maybe the hospital?" Josh forced his eyes away from the broken fragment of his desktop only to find his eyes drawn to a long crease in the side of Ron's helmet where the blue green paint was missing, revealing the grey-black of the carbon fiber weave it was constructed from. _"Is that from a bullet?"_ he wondered, his eyes widening still more.

Monique released Ron's shirt and surreptitiously wiped the serum from her hand onto the edge of a desk. _"Ewww..."_ she thought, then flinched at how unthinkingly she'd reacted to Ron. A sharp crackle coming from Ron's back made her step back a pace.

Wisps of white vapor emanated from one of the pair of blackened and partially enclosed exhaust nozzles secreted in the base of the jetpack - but only from one of them. A series of small holes in the body of the pack (on the right side - the one that still had the wing extended) in a rough diagonal up the side of the mechanism offered a glimpse into the interior - and emitted an occasional crackle as sparks and intermittent electrical discharges erupted from inside the machine. The back of Ron's pants on that side were stained dark, and the faint tang of aviation fuel was gradually became more noticeable.

Ms. Whisp edged closer, partially stymied in her attempt by the extended jetpack wing and the displaced chair, as she said, "That's a very good idea, Ronald. Why don't we take you to..." she fell silent as Ron dropped the broken piece of the desk, the clatter shockingly loud in the silence of the classroom as it bounced off the remaining part of the desktop before falling to the tiled floor.

"Have to take care of something first," Ron muttered, not turning away from Josh. He leaned forward, looming threateningly over the still seated artist.

Josh blinked, and he opened his mouth to answer, but was suddenly struck mute as something else seized his attention. Around Ron's head, a shimmering halo of distortion like a heat mirage was barely visible. In the midst of this flickering aura, which Josh thought was probably created by leakage of some kind from the damaged jetpack, a pair of spectral, faintly luminous will o' the wisps danced in the air above Ron's shoulders. They appeared to glow very, very faintly green and moved _against_ the waves of distortion - which confused him even more, since he would have thought they were caused by the same thing. "I..." he began, then stopped, his throat seizing as the glowing spheres pulsed momentarily brighter.

"Friday was Bonnie's party," Tara abruptly interjected into the ominous silence that stretched far too long for comfort. "Josh was there with Amber, and I was there with..." she flinched as Ron's eyes met hers. She seemed to shrink into herself, hiding behind Josh even as he sank lower into his own seat.

Ron's expression shifted, confusion flickering across his face as his eyes shifted between Josh and Tara. He stood infinitesimally straighter, his posture becoming a meager bit less threatening as he tried to make sense of what he'd heard. "But Kim...?" he whispered, more to himself then to the others.

"Kim? What? Where's Kim?" Monique asked, a moment of panic suddenly seizing her. "She hasn't been in school since..." _"Oh, no,"_ she breathed under her breath as panic gripped her, and she began to fear the worst. Her hands clenched into fists as she fought the sudden urge to grab Ron again and shake him until she knew the complete story.

"With her mom," Ron answered offhandedly, not even aware he'd done so as his brow furrowed in confusion. The answer to the question that had haunted him had seemed so simple - and if there was one person's schedule that he knew better than his own or Kim's (thanks to her crush-driven stalking of him, and his own independent collection of information about the artist in an attempt to be a loyal and supportive friend), it was Josh's, which made the resolution even clearer. But the certainty that had been his support and the basis of his resolve was fracturing as what had seemed so simple was revealed to be more complex. _"Josh was out with Amber? I thought he was going out with Tara...? I know it had to be **someone**, though I can't believe... I'd have thought she would have told... But if it was anyone, I would have thought KP would have..."_

Monique blinked as she thought about Ron's unthinking reply, "She's at the hospital?" she shot back, her eyes widening.

A low susurrus of speculation arose from the watching students, but Ron didn't answer or move, and even Ms. Whisp seemed set aback by Monique's reply. Thoughts and feelings swirled through Ron's mind in a confused maelstrom as he confronted something he hadn't expected and the mix was throwing his rigidly imposed equilibrium into severe imbalance.

"Kim was at the party with some boy I didn't recognize," Tara said slowly, cautiously peering over Josh's shoulder. Her expression was still nervous, but it was also thoughtful as she glanced back and forth between Ron and Monique.

Josh slowly licked his lips in nervousness, the tip of his tongue crinkling as it crossed over a few stray hairs that arose from the bushy thatch of his tiny goatee. Despite a sense of foreboding at providing the information, he clarified Tara's explanation, "It was that new kid - Erik."

Ron's expression slowly froze once more into an emotionless mask, his confusion draining away as resolution filled him once more. "Glad it wasn't you," he finally said, meeting Josh's eyes again as he spoke, his voice quiet and distant. "T-or-T was fun."

Chuckling nervously, Josh slowly nodded, as he swallowed past the lump that seemed to be blocking his throat and fought down the urge to run very, very far away. "It was," he agreed quietly, feeling a sudden strange certainty that he'd just dodged a bullet as that weird flickering haze of distortion swirled around Ron. "That unicorn costume was sweet."

Ron had dismissed Josh entirely from his mind as unimportant once his involvement was disproven, and so didn't hear a word of his reply. For a brief moment, a flicker of uncertainty entered Ron's expression as he looked away from Josh as confusion once more arose in his mind. Ron knew Josh's schedule, but he certainly didn't know everyone's in the school - let alone someone new to the school who he only vaguely knew existed. _"I didn't even know Kim was seeing him..."_ he frowned as he tried to marshall his thoughts about the new information.

Lost in thought and wholly unthinking of his actions, Ron tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He sniffed the air, the movement of his head on his neck and the expression that briefly appeared and then vanished from his face as rapidly as it had arrived looking distinctly... feral. Wild. _Animal._ A barely audible basso growl, more felt than heard, emanated from low in Ron's chest as a faint expression of satisfaction crossed his countenance.

_"There he is,"_ the triumphant thought flashed with an intensity like a bonfire or a signal beacon in his mind. His lips drew back in what might have been a smile, or possibly a snarl, before the look melted once more into an unreadable emotionless mask. He didn't think about where the knowledge had come from or question his newfound certainty, he simply knew it for truth.

"Ron?" Ms. Whisp asked as she stepped cautiously closer, trying once more to regain control of the situation.

Ron ignored her as he turned to face the door, the tip of his jetpack's extended wing swinging over Josh's head and barely missing the bleached ends of his hair. He was brought up short as he came face to face with Monique. "Move," he ordered her, his voice emotionless.

Monique scowled, and although her expression showed her displeasure, she finally stepped aside, scraping a chair across the tiled floor as she cleared the narrow aisle. _"I'll get the answers from him later,"_ she decided.

"Ron, where are you going?" Ms. Whisp asked, her voice filled with uncertainty. _"This is not how Ron Stoppable behaves... ever,"_ she thought with confusion. None of her training or her experience as a teacher had prepared her for a moment like this, and the feeling that she'd somehow lost control was very distressing.

Ron showed no reaction to either the quiet hum of speculation in the background, or the teacher's questions, he simply walked back out of the classroom at the same measured, slightly unsteady pace as he'd entered.

As the door swung shut behind him, Monique turned to the teacher and half-raised one hand. "Permission to get Mr. Barkin?"

Ms. Whisp eagerly nodded, grateful for the suggestion. "Yes, yes, go!" she ordered. The veteran could be a trial at times as he imposed military standards and disciplines on the educational institution, but at this moment, she was very, very grateful for his forceful and determined presence at the school.

"I'm gone," Monique agreed, and rushed out the door, leaving her books and purse behind in her haste.

**

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**


	4. Chapter 3: Bearding the Barkin

**

Chapter 3 : Bearding the Barkin

**

Monique ran out of her classroom and into the hallway, and was startled to find that Ron had already vanished from sight. "Not good," she murmured, before running down the hall towards the administration wing.

Before she had even made it to the end of the hallway, let alone left the wing, a gruff but welcome voice barked out, "No running in the halls!"

"Mr. Barkin," Monique gasped in a sudden exhalation of surprise as she skidded to a stop. "Thank goodness! We've got a situation here, and..."

He interrupted her before she could explain. "Is it Stoppable?"

Monique nodded gratefully.

"I've already heard," he growled, briefly glancing up and down the hallway as though looking for the teen in question.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Monique felt like a weight had fallen from her shoulders. "I'm glad; Ron looks bad, Mr. Barkin, and he said something about Kim, and he was threatening Josh, well, not really threatening, he just looked really, really scary... Which is hard to believe I know because it's _Ron_ after all, and... and..."

"Breathe," Barkin instructed, only half in jest. "I know about Possible, too. She's fine; she'll be back in a week or so. I spoke to her mother when she called her daughter in sick."

Monique felt another upwelling of relief, and with her burdens released and the fear she'd felt _of_ him gone, she felt her concern and fear _for_ Ron reasserting itself. "About Ron?" she began cautiously.

"Yes?" Barkin asked.

"I think he's looking for Erik - the new boy. He was looking for Josh, but Tara mentioned something about a party, and..."

"Understood. Sullivan should be in gym this period, if I remember right. I'll take care of it." When Monique looked like she was going to protest, he repeated, with more heat, "I said, I'll take care of it! Now get back to class."

Scowling, Monique retreated, muttering something under her breath about "everybody ordering me around today," that Mr. Barkin chose to ignore.

Scowling just as ferociously as Monique, Steve Barkin turned and entered a service doorway that was restricted to staff use. The door swung shut behind him, and now that he was out of sight of any students, he was free to hurry in an attempt to head off the problematic teen without risking being seen as anything less than cool, calm, and composed by his other charges.

As he quickly strode down the bare concrete corridor, ducking occasionally to avoid the metal conduits and loops of exposed wiring that sporadically obstructed his path, Mr. Barkin's stride naturally fell into a brisk military marching pace that ate up the distance rapidly. His feet began to kick up some dust as he went, and his scowl deepened. He made a mental note to talk to the new janitor (for some reason, Middleton High had an extremely difficult time retaining its custodial employees - once in a single week they'd gone through Joe, Ludwig, and Max, before hiring Jim, who had lasted almost a month) about taking care of the service areas as well as the publicly accessible ones. _"The quality of work's certainly gone down since Joe quit,"_ he noted irritably to himself, but he didn't let himself become distracted from his primary goal.

Mr. Barkin emerged from the serviceway and was pleased to find himself ahead of Ron - though it was a near thing. "Stoppable!" he barked, moving into the center of the hallway to block his path. "What is your malfunction?" he demanded.

Ron staggered to an unsteady halt, and something flickered in his eyes. He may have been out of it enough to ignore a teacher, he may have been out of it enough to smack down the thugs that he usually didn't fight back against, and he may have been out of it enough to order his social "betters" around, but he wasn't _nearly_ incoherent enough to try to order Steve Barkin around. "Mr. B," he muttered, unsteadily straightening himself to something approaching his normal posture.

"You look terrible, Stoppable. Let's go to the nurse's office and get you taken care of." Despite his gruff nature, Barkin's tone wasn't nearly as harsh as Ron had expected, which was a small blessing for his aching head.

"Can't," Ron shook his head, then winced as the injudicious movement caused a twinge from some of his injuries. "I have to take care of something first."

"It can wait," Barkin ordered, stepping forward, closing the distance between them. "The mission's over. Stand down."

Ron looked blankly at him for a moment, then clawed at the straps on his chest that held the remains of the jetpack to his body. After fumbling for a second, the latches gave way and the twisted jetpack crashed to the floor with a metallic crunch as the still-extended wing crumpled. His helmet, which was connected to the jetpack by a telescoping metal armature, was yanked from his head as it went.

Yelping, Ron put one hand on the top of his head and staggered as a fresh seepage of blood began to trickle down his face. The helmet had taken a scab covering a wound on his scalp with it (along with more than a few strands of hair), and the sudden jerk as the helmet was removed had reopened the injury that lay underneath it.

"Have to take care of something," Ron muttered again, briefly looking at the blood on his palm before lowering his hand to his side. "Have to..."

As Mr. Barkin watched and Ron continued to mumble to himself, Ron's body shifted into a pose that looked vaguely like he was going to throw a javelin. Without a further word or sound, Ron simply faded from sight.

Mr. Barkin had seen enough advanced technology in his time (especially around Kim Possible and her happy-go-lucky sidekick-slash-partner) that he was able to stifle the urge to proclaim, _"That's impossible!"_ Instead, he spread his arms and shifted irregularly back and forth in the hallway near his last known location in an attempt to locate the vanished student by touch. "Stoppable!" he barked, but only silence greeted his sally. He scowled, looking carefully about, but Ron simply could not be seen. There was the faintest sound as of someone moving - a creak of leather, a scuff of boots on tile, but Barkin's blind attempts to feel for the invisible teen encountered only failure.

Growing weary of the game of blind man's bluff, Barkin marched to the end of the hall and opened a locker with a passkey he took from his belt. Inside the locker, a computer screen flickered to life as a child's voice asked, "Kim? What are you doing back at...?"

"Wrong guess," Barkin informed Wade, reattaching the keyring to his belt.

"Mr. Barkin?" Wade blinked in surprise, his hands falling idle on the keyboard in front of him as he shifted his mental gears in response to the surprise caller. "What's up?"

"We've got a problem with Stoppable. Get a hold of Possible and if she's up to it, get her here ASAP - and whether she is or not, get her mother here."

"Problem? With Ron?" Wade wondered aloud, even as his fingers began to type again, bringing up the contact information for the hospital where Mrs. Dr. Possible worked, automatically obeying the order. "How is that possible? He's on a GJ transport, and it's not scheduled to land for another hour. And why Kim's mom and not his?"

"He's not _on_ a transport. He's here at school and in a bad way - and he's not obeying orders." Mr. Barkin frowned for an instant as he reconsidered his words, then clarified, "Even more so than usual. And we don't need her because she's Kim's mom - or at least only indirectly; that relationship will certainly help. We need her because she's a doctor; Stoppable needs medical assistance, and I don't think I can talk him down enough to get him help, but she probably can."

"Um... okay," Wade hesitantly agreed, still confused, but accepting his reasoning. "I'm contacting the medical center now. I'm surprised though; according to the report GJ filed this morning from Nueva Gran Colombia, Ron refused medical treatment for what were listed as 'minor injuries,' and was sent home without incident."

Wade looked at one of his other monitors as it displayed the location of the tracking microchip embedded in Ron's neck, and opened another window to display the limited medical information the chip collected. "Well, I'll be," he blinked in surprise. "He _is_ at Middleton High. But if he's hurt, why would he...?" Wade trailed off as a nasty suspicion took root in his head, and he hurriedly began typing again. "I'll tell Mrs. Possible to hurry."

"Good. Tell her to find us at the gym. And Load?"

"Er, yes sir?" Wade asked distractedly, his hands not stilling as he simultaneously updated his message to the hospital, and began backtracking electronically through time to verify or disprove his suspicions.

"Kudos on the gadgets. The invisibility thing is especially effective."

"Thanks," Wade said, still distracted by his search. When what Mr. Barkin had said finally penetrated his thoughts, he called out, "Wait, what...?" but Mr. Barkin had already slammed the locker door, muffling his confused questions.

Mr. Barkin marched back the way he had come. Pausing only long enough to scoop up the discarded and broken jetpack by the loose shoulder straps, he headed once more for the gymnasium.

**

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	5. Chapter 4: Paging Dr Possible

**

Chapter 4 : Paging Dr. Possible

**

Leaning back against the elevated head of her hospital bed, Kim Possible sighed and stared at the cream colored walls of her private room in the Middleton Medical Center. She plucked briefly at the sleeve of the hideous gown she was forced to wear and tucked it more firmly beneath her, letting the weight of her backside hold it securely closed - until the next time she moved, anyway. _"I hate this,"_ she thought, squirming awkwardly and carefully **not** thinking about what aspect of her current situation she was referring to.

A math textbook lay beside her atop the coarse fabric of her sheets, but as had happened frequently during her stay in the hospital, she found herself unable or unwilling to concentrate on her schoolwork. _"More homework to do. Great."_

Sighing deeply as she yielded to the boredom and frustration of her isolation, Kim's nose wrinkled as she drank in the smell along with her breath. As was typical for hospitals in her experience (usually while escorting or visiting Ron), the dominant odor was a mix of bleach and antiseptic overlaying a plethora of less pleasant scents.

_"So much for a special, magic moment,"_ she thought morosely, turning the hospital admission band that encircled her wrist around and around, revealing and concealing over and over the neatly typed text and barcode that listed her personal information and the cold, impersonal, clinical, description of the reason for her admission to the hospital. _"Ten minutes of awkward, sweaty fumbling in Bonnie's parent's room; not exactly roses... and candlelight... and soft music... and the beach, and..."_

A gurgle from her midsection brought her internal monologue to a sudden halt and made her consider running for the bathroom - _again_. Fortunately, her intestinal discomfort faded before the urge became overwhelming.

She stared up at the IV rack sitting idle by her bedside (idle only until her next dose was required) and tried to convince her stomach that everything was fine. The stainless steel of the hook that soon would once more hold a bag of intravenous antibiotic solution glinted evilly in the sunlight pouring so cheerily through a window, and Kim had to look away from the device as her stomach lurched once more.

Kim had originally thought the hospital stay her mother had dictated was intended as a not-so-subtle form of punishment. _"As if talking with mom about painful urination isn't punishment enough,"_ she winced. Despite what she'd contracted, she'd certainly felt well enough to go to school, but her mother had insisted - and Kim was eventually glad that she had. The first time her stomach had churned in reaction to the heavy course of antibiotics she'd been prescribed had quickly disabused her of the notion that it was an unnecessary step. _"I can't imagine myself sitting in Ms. Lopez's class when that feeling hits - let alone being in front of Mr. Barkin."_

Thankfully, her mom had been more concerned with taking care of the matter once it had been accurately diagnosed than in assessing blame or punishment. _"The look on her face was bad enough,"_ she thought. Even now, the memory of **that** discussion was enough to bring a heated flush of embarrassment and discomfort to her cheeks.

_"I wonder why she asked if we needed to bring in Ron for testing too?"_ she mused momentarily. Dismissing the idle thought, she turned back to her textbook and tried to study, resolutely trying to put all thoughts of her uneasy stomach and the slow march of time until the next phase of her treatment (when the process would start all over again) safely out of her mind.

**_"Paging Doctor Possible... Dr. Possible, call 6231. Dr. Possible, 6231."_**

Kim looked up from her desultory attempt at studying as Wade's voice rang out over the hospital loudspeakers. "That's unusual," she commented aloud, setting her textbook beside the pitcher of ice water on her bedside table.

Pulling out her Kimmunicator, she hit the call button. To her surprise, Wade didn't immediately answer. She waited for several minutes as a test pattern of colored stripes was displayed on the screen, her curiosity and mild irritation growing with every moment that passed.

When Wade finally responded, Kim swallowed her irrational ire at being made to wait and asked, "What's the sitch, Wade? I heard you page mom."

"I was going to call you next, Kim. Mr. Barkin contacted me; apparently Ron is at school, and he's a little out of it. He wants you and your mom to come take care of him."

"_My_ mom?" Kim's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Not his?" she asked.

For a moment, Wade just looked at her, his expression impossible to read, then he said only, "She _is_ a doctor, Kim."

"Wait," Kim began. "He's hurt? How bad? But wait, what's he doing at school if he's... ?" she frowned suddenly as a thought struck her. "Wade..." she scowled, her brow creasing in irritation.

"What?" Wade asked.

"I thought we agreed not to tell Ron," she angrily began, but fell silent when Wade interrupted.

"No, we didn't agree on that. What happened was you told me not to tell him, and I agreed not to disobey you. And before you start, no, I didn't tell him. But it is kind of my fault that he found out," Wade elaborated.

"Wade! Wait, no, er, huh?" Kim stammered, irritation giving way to confusion as she tried to parse out the distinctions. "What?"

"I didn't tell him, Kim," Wade repeated. "But he was on a mission today, and..."

"Ron went on a mission?" Kim demanded, sitting up in the bed while irritably jerking the uncomfortable gown into a better (and more covering) position. "Without me?"

"He's gone solo before," Wade reminded her, "and he did fine today, too. That's beside the point; the point is he had a Kimmunicator..."

"Ron-unicator," Kim prodded.

"Whatever," Wade rolled his eyes, "anyway, he had one, and I've got them pre-programmed to automatically use backdoors and or automatically log you into the sites you visit most often so that you don't have to do anything to get total access. It's a preset feature for Club Banana, GJ, Disney Channel, the Middleton Space Center... and the Middleton Medical Center, among others."

Kim scowled, but didn't comment as he continued.

"Once he found out what you had been admitted to the hospital for, it was a pretty simple matter to look it up - he just had to cut and paste the name into a search engine and he had his answers. I've checked the logs, and he visited a few public medical information sites; that's all it took to figure out what the sitch was. He had plenty of time to look before the GJ transport plane reached the drop zone."

Kim swallowed her response as her mom bustled into the room, pulling the door closed behind her, and sweeping the privacy curtain across the small window. "Put these on," she ordered, tossing a pair of sea green surgical scrubs onto Kim's bed. Kim had a brief thought that this must be what her mom had been like back when she'd worked her rotations in the ER - distracted, abrupt and impatient.

Before Kim could react to or protest her mom's orders, Mrs. Dr. Possible had plucked the Kimmunicator from her daughter's hands and was talking to Wade, turning the device so the visual receptor was facing away from her daughter. "Wade? I'm here. Can you stream the medical data for me?" Looking up from the screen after a moment, she frowned as she noticed Kim hadn't moved. "Hurry, Kimmie, we need to get to the school as quickly as possible."

Reluctantly, Kim slid from under the sheets and slipped out of the ill-fitting gown that she had been wearing. As she shook out the surgical scrub pants, the legs fluttered and a pair of slippers that had been wrapped inside their length clattered to the floor.

Her mother briefly looked up from the screen at the sound, but quickly turned back to the monitor. "I don't like the looks of the blood pressure reading; it's fluctuating too much... Can you get me a visual? And a list of any medications or treatments he might have received from Global Justice before the flight back? Have you tried contacting him on his Kimmunicator?"

Despite her earlier irritation, Kim began to get worried as her mother quizzed Wade more and more intensively about the readings she was viewing and on Ron's condition in general. She quickly finished dressing in the scrubs, leaving the hated gown wadded in a loose ball by the side of the bed. "Ready," she said.

Without looking up from the screen, her mother gripped her by the arm and headed out through the door, still continuing her conversation with Wade. "I've had the EMTs put a kit in my car, and we should be there in 5 minutes or less. If you can, please ask Mr. Barkin to try to keep him calm - though I suppose if he could have done that, he wouldn't have called. Thanks, Wade," she smiled, then hurried down the hallway, pulling her daughter along with her.

"Hey!" Kim half protested over Wade's "No problem, Mrs. Possible."

"Come along, dear," her mother instructed. "We have to hurry."

When they reached their car, Kim's mother helped her climb into the front passenger seat of the family's orange station wagon before getting into the drivers' seat. As she started the ignition, she handed the Kimmunicator back to her daughter, "Please keep an eye on this for me while I drive, and if any more of the readings move into the yellow or the red, let me know _immediately_."

"Okay, mom," Kim sighed, sinking back into her seat. Kim's eyes widened as her mother - who usually drove even slower and safer than her father - left streaks of rubber on the asphalt as she zoomed out of the parking lot. _"If mom's driving like this, how bad off is Ron?"_ Kim wondered, as her eyes riveted themselves to the Kimmunicator, trying to make sense of the readings displayed there.

For the first time in days, she felt a queasiness in her stomach that was wholly unrelated to the antibiotics. "Oh, Ron..." she breathed, her emotions swirling in confusion.

**

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	6. Chapter 5 : Middleton Mad Dog

**

Chapter 5 : Middleton Mad Dog

**

The corridor of Middleton High was long - the longest in the school, in fact - and it appeared to be entirely empty. Since the students and faculty of the facility were engaged in their requisite scholastic duties (fourth period, to be precise), it was consequently perfectly normal for the extra long hall leading from the junction of the math and science wings to the gymnasium to be empty. But appearances can be deceiving - and indeed are, in this case. For despite the echoing void that filled this gallery, and the distinct lack of anyone in sight, the hallway was not actually deserted.

Faint sounds attested to this fact; the scuff of a boot on tile... the rustle of fabric on fabric... the shuffle of weary but unseen footsteps. Had any of the students or faculty been present to aurally witness these sounds, the rumors of the spectral senior (a ghostly haunt that supposedly roamed the halls of Middleton High late at night) that periodically circulated through the school, fed by ever more improbable innuendo and even more ghastly speculation - often alluding to the truth about the source of the cafeteria meatloaf or the fate of (the fearsome librarian) Mrs. Hatchet's husband (or in the worst cases, a combination of both) - would have been lent astonishing credence.

Fortuitously or not, there were no witnesses as Ron Stoppable released the Tai Shing Pek Kwar discipline that had rendered him invisible. Between one step and the next, he simply reappeared and continued moving down the hall towards the gym.

Ron shivered as he felt an unsettling lurch shudder through his body as he faded back into visibility. He tried to hurry his steps as he walked down the hall, since he now knew that Mr. Barkin was trying to stop him, but even freed as he was from the dead weight of his broken jetpack, he felt weighed down and lethargic, and his feet seemed to drag as he walked.

To say Ron hurt was a colossal understatement, but not even his exhaustion and pain could shake the ironclad resolution that possessed him. It drove him ever onward, ignoring such mundane niceties as his injuries and fatigue.

Still, despite his condition and the emptiness that filled him, seeming to insulate him from emotion even as it gave him an absolute singularity of focus, Ron felt a distant, odd sense of euphoria. Even in the midst of his training at Yamanouchi, free of earthly distractions and surrounded by teachers and students attempting to do the same things as he to provide examples and support, it had never been so simple to reach the state of mind necessary to achieve invisibility - nor to maintain it so completely.

_"It was so easy... I didn't even have to think about how to do it, and it worked..."_ As he entered the gym, he vaguely thought, _"That's a good thing, right?"_

**

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**

Ron entered the gymnasium through the double doors beneath the large "Mad Dog" logo near the center of one wall at the midpoint of the basketball court. He let the weight of the double doors he'd passed through swing closed behind him with a muted clang as he focused his attention on the students clustered in groups scattered across the gym floor.

With the absence of the gym teacher (and Mr. Barkin, the usual substitute), it looked to be largely "open play" in P.E. today. Some boys were engaged in a cutthroat basketball game at one end of the gym, (_"He's not there..."_) while some girls were doing gymnastics at the other - mostly stretching and light tumbling, (_"Definitely not there..."_) but one was poised balletically on a balance beam, and another was twirling around on a pair of parallel bars. A few more boys (mostly from some of the athletic teams) were in a pack running laps (and were also noticeably slowing down as they passed near the aforementioned girls doing gymnastics) (_"Not there, either."_)... The majority, however were playing dodgeball.

Ron's eyes slowly ran down the length of the opposing teams, resting on each until his tired mind could identify each player and eliminate him or her as his target. _"Where is he?"_ ran through Ron's mind frequently as his eyes roved over student after student without finding "the new kid." _"I **know** he's here..."_

A growl of frustration rose in the back of Ron's throat. Driven by an impulse he neither understood nor questioned, he sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring as they drank in the aromas.

Sweat, mold, the "lemon" scent of the wax that covered the wooden slats that comprised the floor, and what in common parlance could be termed "eau de sweatsock" dominated, but under the main smells, others could be found... the metallic tang of a cornucopia of antiperspirants and deodorants, a chemical heat of analgesic cream, pheromones, and an undertone of blood new and old - his own and others'. Beneath these in turn were the individual contributions - the invisible emanations in different proportions exuded by all humans, common in principle, similar in composition, but with enough sensitivity of detection, nearly as unique as a fingerprint - and certainly telling enough for Ron in his abnormal state of mind.

"He **is** here..." Ron growled, as his teeth clenched. "Somewhere..." Closing his eyes (or _one_ at least; the other still wouldn't close quite properly), Ron followed the elusive scent-trace, stepping away from the doors and out into the line of fire.

Ron's arrival and quiet kibitzing had passed unnoticed as the other students were mostly intently focused on their activities. When he stepped onto the midcourt line and began to walk across the width of the gym, that abruptly changed.

The students playing dodgeball reacted to Ron's appearance gradually - paranoia and fear of being slammed by a rubber ball hurled at near terminal velocity made shifting attention away from imminent potential danger too great a risk for most. As Ron slowly crossed through the center of the game, following the scent of his prey, the players slowly took notice. But balls continued to fly back and forth even as he crossed the no-man's-land between the teams.

Strangely, despite his usually poor performance at the game - even when he was uninjured and less dazed - Ron wasn't hit once as he crossed the arena - despite his "closed" eyes, unsteady gait, and visible injury. He didn't seem to dodge or react to the balls flying towards him in any way, but even the one ball that _should_ have connected with his head somehow missed.

Although the wave of silence that preceded Ron's progression was less noticeable than it had been in the crowded hallway (largely because aside from the "sprong" of rubber balls hitting the floor or "thumps" as they hit people, it was mostly quiet... save for grunts of effort, the sounds of labored breathing, and the omnipresent squeak of sneakers on the hardwood floor), the phenomenon repeated itself. The players awkwardly shifted, one eye remaining on the game as the other gawked at the surprise interloper. The intensity of the game slowly tapered off as one by one they realized Ron's presence, and his condition.

After Ron had crossed the field of fire, the players watched him walk away, then uncertainly looked at each other as they tried to figure out what had just happened, and what they should do about it. A few more began to look around for Ron's minder, but Kim was nowhere to be found.

The confusion and uncertainty lasted only until the first ball was thrown. A rubber ball streaked across the court, striking a tall girl with a vaguely oval-shaped head in the chest with a thump that generated a pained grunt even as she dropped to the floor.

With the first thrown ball, doubts vanished, and the game immediately resumed. Play restarted with a swirl of chaotic activity and a frenzy of flying rubber balls as players tried to seize an advantage while the opposing team was distracted - and to distract themselves from thinking about their bloodstained fellow student.

Ron's odd interruption was pushed to the back of the player's minds as the renewed need to evade the flung projectiles seized their attention. Only a vague lingering uncertainty of _"What just happened?"_ remained as a legacy of Ron's passage.

Ron ignored both the restarted game and the other students as he followed his nose. The scent grew progressively stronger as he went, until the only thing in his mind was the smell, and the need to find the one he was tracking. Shuffling along in front of the bleachers on the far side of the gym, Ron elevated his nose to better sense the scent from amidst the other masking odors.

With a squeak of rubber on polished wood, the gaggle of boys running laps slid to an unsteady halt as they rounded a corner and found themselves confronted by an apparent escapee from "Zombie Mayhem 2." At first, the trailing members of the pack cursed and shouted as they collided with the stilled frontrunners, but as they too, realized what had brought the outriders of the wolfpack to a halt, they fell silent and froze as well. They recognized Ron - even infamy is fame of a sort, but as he staggered forward, feet dragging, head canted at a strange angle, and with more than a little visible blood, the who and the why didn't matter. The boys quietly untangled themselves from the knot of limbs the pack had degenerated into at the sudden stop, and turned and reversed course without comment, running back the way they had come.

Ron passed near the cutthroat basketball game, but followed the scent trail rather than pause to watch the action. Unburdened by a referee, the match between some of the stars of the athletic program was intense, and much more physical than the rules intended. More than one of the sweating players bore a bright pink patch on their glistening skin as a legacy of a foul touch or a collision that would have been illegal even in hockey or rugby. From the bright eyes and broad grins of the players, it was clear that didn't matter as the shirts slowly regained the lead from the skins.

Turning a corner, Ron finally found Erik. He was lurking near the entrance to the girls' locker room - but not in a creepy way. In the hollow underneath the mostly-retracted stadium seats that lined one wall of the gym, Erik held court with Bonnie and a few of the other cheerleaders hanging on his every word - and not coincidentally, skipping the semi-organized exercise of open play phys ed.

As he drew himself up to his full height, ignoring the pain that resulted from the stretching of the burned skin of his stomach, Ron blinked and centered himself, trying to focus through the pain and exhaustion that blunted his thoughts. When he was as ready as he could be, he walked (as best he could) into the space under the bleachers, weaving between the support struts that threatened the incautious head, towards the small gathering.

He had been silent in his approach, but when Bonnie leaned forward as though to kiss Erik, Ron spoke, his voice emotionless and cold, if a trifle hoarse. "Don't get so close Bon-bon; I think he's contagious."

"Oh, please," Bonnie began, rolling her eyes in annoyance at the interruption. "Like I..." she stopped as she turned and saw Ron's condition. Despite her general contempt for him, even she had limits. "What happened to you?" she gasped in shock, stepping back and blinking in surprise. Ron being weird was normal; Ron with injuries was normal; Ron annoying her was normal; Ron like this... definitely **not** normal.

From behind Bonnie, a chorus of startled gasps, exhalations, and similar sounds arose from the other cheerleaders as they too noticed his presence - and his appearance. Erik's expression, on the other hand, showed only annoyance at the interruption.

Ron didn't respond to Bonnie's question; instead he stepped forward, interposing himself in the space between Bonnie and Erik, causing her to step back even further, before turning to face the taller teen. "Where were you Friday?" he asked, his expression empty of emotion as he briefly swayed unsteadily on his feet.

The cheerleaders blinked and looked at each other in confusion. The main thought on their minds as they digested the oddity of Ron's sudden and horrific appearance, and the sheer absurdity of his question was simply a universal _"Huh?"_.

At first, Erik didn't respond; but as more of the girls who had been doting on him turned and seemed to be expecting him to answer, he finally did. "I was at Bonnie's party."

The girls - most of whom had been there as well - nodded their agreement, but Ron didn't move or change his expression. "Who were you with?" he asked instead.

"There were a lot of people," Erik retorted, a flicker of irritation visible on his face. "It was a party - not that I'd expect someone like you to know anything about those," he concluded dismissively, smirking as a few of the watching girls tittered in response.

"Who were you with?" Ron repeated, not changing his expression, but leaning a fraction closer to the older boy.

"He went with Kim, duh," Bonnie interjected. "Didn't she tell you? But why should you care? And should you even be here like that? You might... bleed on the floor and stain it, or something," she finished lamely, trying to regain her composure and bearing with an attack, but unable to muster more than a half-hearted one in the face of his condition.

"Who were you with?" Ron asked for the third time, as his hands slowly clenched into fists by his side.

Despite Ron's unsteady stance, Erik felt a faint air of menace coming from him - and it annoyed him. "_You're_ Kim's friend?" Erik asked, his eyebrows rising in exaggerated surprise. "Sorry, I didn't know. She never mentioned you when we were at the party," he added, a hint of satisfaction entering his eyes.

Having verified Tara and Josh's information, Ron moved on to the next point he had to clarify - something he'd wondered ever since learning the truth, and had thought about for hours while on the plane rides to and from the Amazon. "Did you know?" he quietly asked, squeezing his hands tighter until his knuckles shone palely through the skin on his ungloved hand, and the leather creaked where it stretched across the other.

Despite Erik's quick assumption of a look of confusion, Ron could see in his eyes that he had understood what Ron meant by the question. "Did you know?" he repeated, the words accompanied by the faint echoing roar of his blood coursing through his veins that resounded in his ears as he swayed unsteadily on his feet.

"Yes, I knew," Erik finally answered. "I knew she'd be there... it was a date. And shouldn't you be in the nurse's office?" He hid a smirk as the girls surrounding him sighed at his show of caring and concern for such a loser.

Ron's emotions began to surge, momentarily breaching the pall that encompassed him. "Did. You. Know?" he enunciated clearly past the hollow roaring that seemed to fill his ears.

Leaning forward, Erik whispered in Ron's ear, too quietly for any of the watching cheerleaders to hear, "Of course I knew. So what? She wanted it anyway. Hell, she was _begging_ me for it. And I gave it to her all night long," there was a quiet glee in his voice as he gloated, twisting the dagger in the smaller teen's back.

Slowly, Ron shook his head in stunned disbelief. He finally knew the truth - the truth that had been the focus of his obsessive thought and worry since he'd used the Kimmunicator on the plane and learned why his best friend was in the hospital and refusing to see or talk to him.

Ron's expression twisted as his emotions gnawed at the semblance of equanimity he'd been maintaining. Somehow, despite all the worries and thoughts leading up to this moment - the confrontation that he'd forced himself to keep moving for, so that he could confront the one who had done it to Kim - he'd never once thought about what he'd do when he'd actually passed that moment of truth; when he'd found the culprit who'd hurt Kim more than any costumed villain or evil genius or demented doctor...

... that he hadn't prevented from doing so.

And as he struggled to find the words he wanted to say, strained to think of something meaningful to do to find justice for his friend, Ron's mouth acted without conscious direction. "How could you do that to her?" he demanded, his voice cracking as he lurched drunkenly forward one pace, then staggered back again as he regained his balance, the eyelashes over his swollen eye twitching as his pulse throbbed. "She didn't do anything to you! She's... good... She tries to _help_ people... She... She... How could you...?"

Bonnie, despite her occasionally one-track mind, wasn't stupid. She put two and two together as she watched the confrontation and listened to Ron's incoherent and disjointed accusations and protests and got four. And she wasn't at all pleased with the results (even though the conclusion she reached was wrong).

The fact that Ron's face bore a serious (if confused and bloodstained) expression she took to be damning as well. She might not like Ron very much, but she had known him a long time. A serious expression on his face was rarer than the proverbial hen's tooth and she knew what him wearing such an expression meant.

"Want to tell me what this is about, _Erik_?" she demanded. "Ron may be a total loser, but he wouldn't be here like this for no reason."

"He's just confused," Erik retorted, his composure cracking for the first time as he realized the girls' attitude towards him was beginning to shift. He scowled in annoyance at the runt who had interrupted his time with the girls, and appeared to be well on his way to sabotaging his plans - and the fun he had intended to have with all of them in turn.

Snorting in disbelief at the daft response, Bonnie moved around the block of Ron's battered body and gripped him by the biceps, directing his unfocused gaze onto her and causing his increasingly incoherent babbling to fall silent as his gaze met hers. "Ron?" she asked, her voice and manner softer towards him than it had been since his brief wealth evaporated, "What happened? What did he do?" From the edge in her voice as she asked the questions, it was clear that she had some idea as to the answers - and wasn't happy about them.

As his plans, popularity, and intended conquests began to turn on him, following Bonnie's lead, Erik felt furious. "You stupid son of a..." Erik began, but didn't finish, as without warning he hauled his fist back, and punched Ron squarely in his already battered eye.

Ron staggered back a pace, his arm jerked from Bonnie's grip by the sudden movement. His eye, already bruised and discolored, swelled until it was fully shut, but he didn't make a sound.

Bonnie flinched away from the assault as the other girls fled in panic like a covey of flushed quail, retreating to the safety of the girls' locker room. Erik's fist had narrowly missed Bonnie's ear, and her eyes widened as she realized that she had felt the breeze of its passage on her cheek. "Hey!" she cried out, turning and moving to confront the enraged teen - while simultaneously stepping from between the two boys (as was mentioned previously, Bonnie isn't stupid).

Irked at the interruption, Erik drew back his fist to take a swing directly at Bonnie. Before he could, Ron interrupted. "Don't," he ordered quietly, his voice once more empty of emotion as his focus narrowed to a pinpoint.

Despite himself, Erik snorted with amusement as he lowered his fist. Ron was a head shorter and substantially slighter than himself, and looked half-dead already. Erik wasn't usually a fighter, but even still, as a physical threat, he figured Ron rated slightly above Bonnie - but only slightly. And Bonnie? He rated her as not a threat at all.

"You hurt her," Ron said slowly and unsteadily, blinking his one good eye as his fists clenched and unclenched as his composure fractured and reformed as he struggled to keep his voice calm through the turbulence of his emotional maelstrom. A trickle of moisture leaked from beneath the swollen lid of his mangled eye as he found his voice once more through the haze of confusion and emotion, the words coming to him easily for once. "You took what should have been a gift, something special and precious... and spoiled it. And you knew... I can't believe you knew, and did it anyway."

"So what?" Erik sneered, enjoying Ron's heartbreak and pain. He felt a certain sadistic satisfaction in the palpable pain emanating from the one who had spoiled his plans; he took it as a just recompense for his interference. "I got it from a cheerleader in the first place. I was just returning the favor."

Bonnie was confused by Erik's retort, but was still increasingly glad that Ron had interrupted her when he did. "Let's just leave this loser here, Stoppable. I think you need to go to the nurse's office."

"Have to take care of something first, Bon-bon," Ron muttered. "He knew..." he finished, as though that explained everything.

"It can wait," Bonnie instructed him mock patiently, and pointedly. She found herself becoming a little annoyed that Ron - _Ron_, of all people - was proving to be even less tractable than Brick Flagg. _"You'd think Kim would have had him trained better by now,"_ she thought in irritation.

"Might give it to someone else," Ron explained dazedly, staggering a bit as he straightened. "He knew, but still... I have to stop him. Can't let him..."

Through the knife edge of new pain emanating from his eye, and the insulating blanket of his exhaustion, he felt... something... just beyond the edge of his consciousness. It called to him in a whisper too soft to hear, but too insistent and appealing to ignore.

"Stop me? You? Don't make me laugh, loser," Erik sneered. He stepped forward, fists clenched, prepared to pound the runt into submission and reclaim some of the sense of power he felt he'd lost in the confrontation. But as suddenly as he started, he stopped, and simply gaped in shock.

A _sword_ had appeared in Ron's hands. It was Japanese in style, and though it may have been a trick of the irregular lighting beneath the bleachers, it seemed to be surrounded by an odd blue glow. What mostly brought Erik up short however, was the fact that it was held with the point aimed directly at Erik's stomach.

Bonnie blinked in confusion, even as Erik stepped back. _"Where'd he get that?"_ they wondered silently.

"Can't let you do it again," Ron breathed, his unfocused eyes staring down at the blue sword he held. "Can't let you. Kim... Bonnie..." The swordtip sank slightly, whether deliberately, or because of Ron's deteriorating condition, until it was aimed differently.

Erik blanched as he unconsciously covered himself with his hands. He stepped back a pace, putting a little more distance between himself and the tip of the blade.

Ron continued mumbling to himself. "Can't let you do it..." he breathed, and suddenly he held not a sword, but a long dagger bristling with points, blood runnels, and branching sub-blades that looked like it would be all but impossible to use safely - but every edge appeared so deadly and sharp, that it would also be impossible to elude or to avoid injury when confronted by it.

"Too quick... too neat..." he breathed, his gaze still on the weapon in his hands. "Too... sharp," he concluded, looking up into Erik's frightened eyes. "Too... clean."

Ron slowly raised his hands, revealing the large blue spoon he now held. "You knew..." he whispered. "Unclean... Sick and wrong... _Sick. And. Wrong._" he finished, enunciating each word clearly.

Erik looked down at the spoon Ron held, then slowly looked up into Ron's one visible eye.

Ron's eye was unfocused and a little bloodshot, but it never wavered as it's gaze pierced through Erik's own. And as Erik's eyes slowly widened, Ron's lips creased into a smile - one that Erik didn't recognize, but that Kim would have noted as being very reminiscent of one of Shego's when she was about to do something she really, really enjoyed.

Recognizable or not, it was too much for Erik. He ran for his life, shoving Bonnie into the wall formed by the retracted bleachers with a loud crash that rattled the metal seats and left them quivering.

"Ow!" she groused, rubbing an aching elbow.

"Don't worry, Bon-bon," Ron said spacily, as his head slowly turned to follow the flight of his prey, despite the fact that the bleachers obstructed his view. Through the haze that clouded his mind, he noted, "He won't get away. There's nowhere he can run that I won't find him." Somehow his hands were empty, though she hadn't seen him move to put away the spoon - not that she'd seen where he'd gotten it (or any of the other implements he'd held) in the first place. "I can't let him get away..."

Leaving Bonnie alone, Ron walked from beneath the bleachers, faster than he'd entered, but just as unsteadily. As he turned the corner and entered the gym proper, he seemed to fall forward. Despite what looked like a collapse, he caught himself on his hands even as his legs bent, so that instead of landing on his face, he sank onto his haunches. Sniffing the air, Ron's lips drew back in an expression resembling a fusion of a smile, a snarl, and a sneer that revealed his bared teeth.

Erik glanced over his shoulder as he ran, and saw Ron _looking_ at him from an odd crouching pose - and looking distinctly feral. "Stay away from me, you freak!" he shouted. He staggered as one foot stumbled when he tried to turn his attention back in the direction of his headlong flight. Before he could recover his balance, a rubber ball slammed into the side of his head and brought him crashing to the ground.

"Sorry about that," Vinnie informed him insincerely. "Didn't see you there." The young African-American teen smirked as he dodged an incoming ball from the other, quickly becoming caught up in the flow of the game again.

As Erik scrambled to his feet, cursing foully, Ron began to move. His gait was unusual, like an oddly jointed quadruped's, and he used his hands as much as his feet as he bounded across the gym floor on a long diagonal course that would end at the door Erik was making for. Despite how awkward the movement appeared, and the injuries he clearly sported, Ron was still moving much, much faster than Erik.

A snarl was on Ron's lips, and as he neared the ranks of dodgeball players they could see nothing rational in his one open eye. Without pausing to question the action, or wonder what had caused the mad dog to slip his leash, they moved aside to let him through, the dodgeball game gradually slowing to another irregular halt punctuated by an occasional thump.

Erik had a sizeable lead on Ron, and he nearly reached the exit. Before he could flee from the gym however, the twin doors slammed open, forcing him to come to a staggering, sliding halt as a figure stomped through the doorway, blocking his escape.

"Nice 'Mad Dog' routine, Stoppable. Now give it a rest," Mr. Barkin barked.

Glancing over his shoulder, Erik could tell Ron wasn't obeying. He gibbered in panic, "Get out of the way... I've got to get out of here... He knows I knew before I... He's not right in the head, you've got to let me... It's all that stupid chick's fault... It's not _my_ fault! She wanted me... Who cares if I..." He finished with a frightened yell, "He came after me with a _**spoon**_, man!"

"Hold your horses," Barkin ordered under his breath, not turning his eyes away from the rapidly approaching Ron. "Nobody's going anywhere until we get this mess straightened out."

Ron's expression darkened with an animal fury as he neared his target. Erik's eyes widened as he imagined he saw his death burning in that maddened eye. Ignoring Barkin's orders, Erik ducked under the arms Mr. Barkin still held outstretched to bar the doorway and fled blindly down the hallway, heading for the school's side door and the motorcycle he had parked outside.

"Get back here!" Barkin yelled over his shoulder, but was ignored. "No one ignores Steve Barkin," he muttered to himself, then promised even more quietly, "I'll deal with _you_ later."

"Stoppable!" he bellowed, finally attracting the attention of the entire gym class at the force of his call, but the teen's expression changed not an iota as he continued bounding forward. Ron was close enough that Mr. Barkin could see the lack of anything approaching humanity in his eye.

Despite how near he was getting to Mr. Barkin, Ron wasn't slowing. Barkin braced himself for the impact, but just as Ron bounced against the ground to make another leap, someone slipped under Mr. Barkin's outstretched arm and entered the gym.

_**"Ron!"**_

Through the haze that clouded his vision, Ron blinked as something penetrated the void of his thoughts. "Wha...?" he began, but as he lost his focus, and his conscious mind tried to reassert active control of his actions, his body tried to move both as a biped and a quadruped simultaneously.

Mr. Barkin had a perfect view of Ron's face as his expression rapidly changed from a snarl, to confusion, to panic, and finally to distress as he landed badly from the last, haphazard bounding hop he'd made. As his feet scrambled and slipped on the polished floor, he crashed in an ungainly heap. Ron awkwardly slid to a stop a few feet in front of Mr. Barkin, just inside the edge of the blue out-of-bounds boundary of the basketball court.

Ron rose from the unsteady half-sprawl, his turtleneck and cargo pants smeared with pale tan dust and dirt he'd collected from the floor in his sliding crash. He made an attempt to straighten that mostly succeeded, his eye wide and wild. Then, with a faint whisper of "KP?" he slowly sank forward to his knees. After an interminable pause as his mind processed her presence and decided it was safe to shut down, he slumped forward, burying his face in the sea green expanse of cloth that covered her stomach as he lost consciousness.

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Kim awkwardly leaned Ron's limp form backwards, laying him on his back. She winced as she realized the extent of his injuries, but was distracted as her mother brushed past Mr. Barkin, carrying the medical kit.

"Oh my," she breathed, even as she knelt to open the kit and begin assessing Ron's wounds. "You poor thing."

"Get back to dodgeball, people!" Mr. Barkin bellowed, stepping around Ron's prone form and partially obstructing him from view. Despite the unusual activity going on near the entrance, most of the class obeyed - it didn't pay to draw Mr. Barkin's attention, let alone his ire. From across the diagonal length of the gym, he could see Bonnie was continuing towards them, but he let it pass.

Mrs. Possible ignored the activity and all other distractions as she adjusted Ron's clothing and began to do what she could for his injuries.

"Care to explain, Miss Possible?" Mr. Barkin asked - seemingly casually, but his intense undertone demanded an answer.

Kim glanced between Ron, her mother, the doorway that Erik had fled through, and the approaching form of Bonnie. Without a word, she simply held out one hand, letting Mr. Barkin bend down to read the admission information encoded on the hospital wristband.

"I... see," he said slowly. "Was there... coercion or _compulsion_ involved?" he asked uncomfortably, wincing in discomfort at having to ask the question as he straightened his back.

"Not," Kim began, as uncomfortably as he, lowering her eyes so she wouldn't have to meet his gaze, "more than the heat of the moment."

Mr. Barkin nodded slowly, and stared over her partially lowered head, his eyes clearly focused on something other than the gymnasium. "I see..." he repeated. "I am of course disappointed that you failed to pay attention to _certain_ lectures," he began, before concluding in a softer voice, more to himself than to her, "but I suppose we're all entitled to be young and stupid sometimes."

Kim wanted to be angry at the characterization, but couldn't muster the energy or the certainty of her position to dispute it. She lowered her gaze, and found herself staring at the bloodstain Ron had left on her top; an image of the side of his face was imprinted in muddy red on her stomach when his bloodied face pressed against it. "It's as much my fault as Erik's. I didn't have to, but I..." she trailed off, her cheeks flushing crimson again.

"That's not important right now. We just have to deal with the consequences," he murmured. "I take it Stoppable found out, and that Sullivan was the... other party?" he asked.

Kim simply nodded, her hands wringing at the bottom of the surgical blouse, twisting the material to hide the stain behind a fold of fabric as a vivid blush suffused her cheeks.

"I see..." he repeated, his brow furrowing as he thought about what Kim had said. "That certainly explains what young Mr. Sullivan said before he ran off - as well as some other matters. Miss Possible, while I am hardly an expert on the laws of this state, based on what Erik said before he ran off, and speaking as a private citizen, and not in my capacity as an educator, you understand, I would recommend that you consult an attorney and pursue civil action - if not criminal. If nothing else, you should consider sending him your medical bills."

"It wasn't..." Kim began, blushing even more furiously, "I mean, I wanted... I wasn't... I didn't..."

Mr. Barkin's expression didn't shift from the more than slightly uncomfortable frown. "Talk to Stoppable."

"I'm sorry about Ron," Kim apologized, her cheeks crimson with embarrassment. "He wasn't supposed to find out; I just don't understand why he went off like that, instead of going to the doctor after the mission. He should have known better."

Raising an eyebrow, Mr. Barkin held his arms behind his back and eyed her carefully as he tried to ascertain if she was joking. When he was convinced she wasn't, he simply shook his head. "Don't make me question your intelligence more than once per day, Possible," he scowled, his voice dropping in volume and gaining a growl. "I don't like it." With that, he stalked past Kim to where Mrs. Dr. Possible was treating Ron and bent to assist.

Kim blinked in surprise, honestly shocked by Mr. Barkin's parting words. _"Did he just call me stupid?"_

From behind her, Kim heard incoherent snatches of Ron's stammering voice as her mother treated his wounds. "... sorry... black hole... sterile... protect... so sorry... Mrs. Dr. P... fault... he knew, but... sorry... scarring... deep space probe... sorry... I didn't..."

"Shh," Kim's mother tried to quiet him as she finished wrapping his leg in gauze, patting his thigh above the bandaged area in an attempt to calm him, her voice reassuring and soothing. "Rest now, honey. It's not your fault. Don't worry; everything will be alright."

Kim's attention was drawn away from Ron's prone form as Bonnie approached. "What?" she demanded of her high school nemesis.

"You need to take better care of your pet," Bonnie responded mildly, glancing over her shoulder at Ron as Kim's mother cut away part of his pants as she continued to work on his leg.

"Excuse me?"

"Ron. He's still a loser, and a froob... but he's loyal," Bonnie explained. "That's too useful a trait to throw away like this."

Bonnie left it at that and was walking away, when Kim demanded, "That's it? That's all you're going to say?" Kim was expecting Bonnie to be gloating and lording it over her even worse than usual. Instead, she only made a snide comment that was even vaguely complimentary of Ron. _"What's wrong with her?"_

After a quick glance around to ensure she wouldn't be overheard, Bonnie answered, "What do you want me to say? It wasn't your fault your new boyfriend is violent and stupid. Just get well, then come back to school so I can put you back in your place - like normal."

Kim raised a surprised eyebrow. _"That's unexpected,"_ she mused. "I don't know what you're thinking, but..."

Bonnie raised an aristocratic eyebrow in turn and cocked one hip, causing her cheerleading skirt to swish gently from side to side. "If you don't want a break, I'm more than willing to do that too. I'm only cutting you some slack because if it wasn't for Ron showing up, Erik would have gone after me next."

When Kim looked like she was going to protest, Bonnie held up one quelling hand, and glanced briefly at her elbow as her expression darkened into a furious scowl. "Don't bother denying it or covering up for that loser, Kim. He's not worth it. He was going to take a swing at _me_, too; he's total bad news. I was just lucky he was working his way _up_ the food chain, and not down." Bonnie sniffed a haughty dismissal, then spun on her heel and left Kim gaping in disbelief at her back.

Kim watched her march away, stunned speechless by Bonnie's words. _"Erik tried to **hit** her?"_ she wondered in disbelief. _"That's impossible... I can't believe..."_

She turned and slowly walked back to her mother, her mind awhirl with confusion. "Here, hold this," Kim's mom commanded, reaching behind herself to hand Kim the Kimmunicator.

Kim took the device gingerly, twining her hands around the sensors and probes that seemed to be sprouting from every inch of it. She held it steady as it beeped intermittently, scanning Ron's body for any possible change in condition.

Ron was swathed in bandages from head to ankle, surrounded by irregular swatches of his clothes that had been cut away to provide easier access to his injuries. He appeared to have passed out once more, the incoherent babbling to Kim's mother having sapped what remained of his energy. The telescoping probes sprouting from the Kimmunicator waved back and forth in a gentle swaying motion as they watched over him. "Oh, Ron," she breathed, mostly to herself.

"He'll be fine, Kimmie, don't worry. It looks worse than it is - thankfully. Let's get him to the car," Kim's mother instructed. "Can you carry him, Mr. Barkin?"

"Of course," he replied, and with a single movement, lifted him, cradling the back of his head with one hand to prevent Ron's neck from flopping.

"Get his legs, Kimmie," Mrs. Possible continued, plucking the Kimmunicator from her hands. "I don't want the left one moving any more than it has to."

Kim hesitantly obeyed, holding up Ron's legs by the muddy boots. She shuffled beside Mr. Barkin, matching her pace to his as he strode out of the gym and headed for their car.

Between the two adults, and with Kim's aid, they gingerly positioned Ron across the back seat of the station wagon with his head resting on Jim and Tim's bag of soccer gear. Mrs. Dr. Possible positioned his injured leg, and used the bulk of the medical kit to ensure it would stay securely in position, before carefully closing the door, trying not to jar the unconscious teen.

"Thank you for the help, Mr. Barkin," Dr. Possible sighed, running a hand through her dishevelled red hair.

"You're quite welcome," he nodded, straightening his back to its usual ramrod erectness. "Let me know if there are any changes in his condition, and I'll be sure to bring over all the homework he misses."

"I'm sure he'll appreciate it," she replied with a gentle smile.

"Doubtful," Mr. Barkin growled, but there was a suspiciously cheerful look in his eye. "And don't forget what I told you," he ordered Kim.

Kim nodded, still confused and uncertain following her confrontation with Bonnie. She joined her mother in climbing into the family vehicle, and settled back in her seat with a heavy sigh. The car pulled out at a much more sedate pace than it had arrived (which Kim took to be a _very_ good sign), as her mother glanced into the rear view mirror every now and then to check on Ron's condition and positioning.

Mr. Barkin watched the orange station wagon until it passed from sight around a curve in the road, then turned to head back into the school building, wondering what the eventual fallout would be from the incident.

_"Worries about that will wait for later; right now, I need to find young Mr. Sullivan."_

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**Author's Notes: ** Whew... here concludes the first arc of this story. I don't think I've ever had a more misunderstood story than this one; between picking up the action in the middle of events and showing that the characters aren't aware of everything that happens instantly, and as it happens, and trying not to give spoilers or too much foreshadowing (while definitely trying to use foreshadowing), and trying to respond to reviews and consequently spoiling some of the plot twists (pause for breath) I think I may have confused folks.

I don't know whether to feel gratified so many folks responded, disappointed I didn't convey the story clearly enough to prevent confusion, or surprised it's generated such a response. To be blunt, I wasn't exactly trying to be deep, meaningful, and full of insights into the nature of reality and the key to the meaning of life with this story... Though people aren't wearing enough hats. (And kudos if you get that reference.)

Did I want to put in some (I thought) clever plot twists and tweak reader expectations? Yep.

Did I want to inject a new element into the fandom, while staying pretty true to the characters? Yep.

Did I use one of my standard plot twists? Yep - people don't know everything, people are confused, there's miscommunications, information travels slowly, and omniscience is darn rare... this is a truth that shows up in a lot of my fics.

Did I want to tweak some conventional scenes, scenarios, and plot devices - and in so doing tell what I thought was an interesting story? Yep.

Did I want to take the standard Kim gets hurt and Ron reacts badly scenario and twist it to my own purposes? Yep... and as I've mentioned before, I write and read in a bunch of fandoms, and you can find this basic story premise in every single one of them - not to mention most regular TV shows and many movies. Heck, if you look at it a certain way, even Ron's dream at the beginning of "The Fearless Ferret" fits this mold.

Did I think I was creating something new and different? Well, in a way... but I'll be the first to admit it was derived from a typical premise - albeit one I hadn't seen before, which frankly is a little rare. Last time I looked, when I checked in my browser on there were approximately 61 _pages_ of Kim Possible stories... and that's just one site, for one fandom. I may be a little creative, but I'm not egocentric enough to assume that I'm coming up with something that's never been done before in the history of humanity.

Did I want to write a story where, even though the timeline isn't entirely linear, there's enough information to identify what's happened, and by foreshadowing and references and inference, let the reader think about what's happened, and what's coming - and either reward that, or tweak what happens so it's not exactly what's expected? Definitely. I pictured what I thought of as a "Babylon 5" moment where 10 parts into the story, you remember something I alluded to early on in the story and think, "Hey, I remember that." Mine wouldn't involve either a nuke or a head on a pike, however. But then, foreshadowing doesn't have to be subtle.

Did I want to _not_ come off sounding preachy? A great **big** yep - and in a story involving premarital sex (with regrets, revenge, and an STD thrown in, besides) I thought this was going to require treading a very, very fine line, but perhaps I went too far in the other direction and people assumed I was either advocating a behavior or assigning entirely atypical behavior to the characters.

Did I spoil too much in the author's notes? Yep, probably... But thanks to the previous point, I was trying to head off some of the anticipated backlash. And in my defense, most of those (after the first notes anyway), were in response to reviews and trying to clarify things... What can I say? The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Did I come off as a little full of myself in some of them? Yeah to that one too... I tried to avoid mentioning certain aspects and certain things, and in retrospect, I don't think I did it very well, but I was trying to explain things without too many spoilers, or coming right out and saying still other things, and again, trying not to be preachy while explaining the intent and the premises, and the story flow.

Do I think Kim and Ron are perfect? Heck no... and if nothing else, "Ron Millionaire" and "October 31st" should tell everyone that they aren't - not even Kim. They're human - animated, but even so... Which means they're just as prone to mistakes, accidents, and all the other foibles as everyone else, even in a Disney universe, which is one of the reasons I (and probably a lot of other folks) like 'em so much.

In all truth, this is the first time I've felt like I had to explain, justify, or defend a story - and considering some of the premises I've used in the past, that's really saying something. Anyway, because of this confusion, I think I'll add an interlude chapter before continuing to the next arc in the story (what happened to Ron - which isn't exactly a new bit of spoilage: that was Note 2 back in the initial author's notes) summarizing the facts of the story as they're known to date (now that I don't have to worry about revealing even more spoilers for the first arc), which should hopefully clear up questions on what's been covered and clarify what I intended - especially since I'm betting I'll draw some flak for the events of this part as well.

R&R, and let me know what you think of it, and any other questions about the events shown to date, and I'll try to clarify things...

Aside from that, I hope you're still enjoying the story.

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